


The Family You Choose

by FullTimeAvocadoBoy



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Good Parent Drake Mallard, M/M, Parent Launchpad McQuack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26399098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullTimeAvocadoBoy/pseuds/FullTimeAvocadoBoy
Summary: Gosalyn being sick is something Drake and Launchpad can handle. However, there are some aspects of parenthood they still struggle with...
Relationships: Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack
Comments: 18
Kudos: 174





	The Family You Choose

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ButterThatBurns/status/1305873911096045569) / [Tumblr](https://quiverwingduck.tumblr.com/post/628923593371402240/gosalyn-being-sick-is-something-drake-and).

Drake Mallard was a good father. He was a great many things that Launchpad found himself enduring with a set jaw and an aching heart, but when it came to Gosalyn, Drake worked himself into knots trying to do the best that he could. Or trying to make up for his misgivings.

Through rain, sleet, and snow, whining and moaning all the while, Drake would drag Launchpad out on patrol every single night. Sometimes Drake would be so wounded from a previous fight that Launchpad would be taking him to work in a wheelchair, loopy on painkillers, and still, he would insist on going. But when Gosalyn came home from school with no voice and a cough that rattled deep in her chest, Launchpad was not surprised when Drake caught him by the arm and announced they were staying home.

“Sure thing, DW,” Launchpad answered dutifully. There was a crease of worry in Drake’s brow, a weariness in his eyes. Launchpad covered Drake’s hand with his own and squeezed. “You stay with her,” he added softly. “I’ll get some soup cooking.”

Gosalyn was a world-class faker, but never _after_ school, and even she couldn’t have faked the way her whole body shook with every cough, the hollow, painful rasping that came out when she tried to speak. Drake held her in his lap, propped up against his chest to make her sit upright while he spooned a viscous red medicine into her mouth and let her chase it with as much of the soup as she could get down. Looking sick with worry himself when she winced against the burn of it.

Launchpad watched Drake touch the back of his hand to her forehead, and flash him a look. Like a dance, they both sprung into action, Drake rising from the couch and holding her up to him, Launchpad feeling her forehead as well and nodding gravely. Drake passed her into Launchpad’s arms in one fluid motion, Launchpad cradling her tiny body so effortlessly as he followed Drake into the kitchen, keeping her secure while Drake buzzed all around him. Thermometer under her tongue and a damp, cool wash cloth draped over her forehead. Gosalyn’s eyes sunk shut as they waited for the thermometer to beep, head resting heavily in the crook of Launchpad’s arm.

Launchpad watched his partner deflate reading the number, all the tension fueling the flurry of activity a moment ago escaping him. “It’s a little high,” Drake said gently. “But we don’t need to go back to the doctor. Yet.”

“We’ll check again in an hour,” Launchpad added absent-mindedly, more focused on watching Gosalyn dozing in his arms. They both knew the routine. Every step memorized.

Gosalyn’s eyes cracked open, gaze shifting lazily from Launchpad’s face to Drake’s. “Can I sleep in your guys’ room?” she asked, voice scratchy and dry.

Launchpad said nothing. He often didn’t know what to say in moments like these, and often he didn’t have to, because Drake couldn’t shut up if he tried. He watched Drake flush, turning almost as pale as poor Gosalyn.

“Who said we’re sleeping in the same room?” Drake asked, fighting a stammer and failing to keep his tone from shooting up an octave the way it always did when he lied.

Gosalyn smiled, ever the conniver, even now, unable to resist teeing Drake up so she could take a swing. “The guys who delivered that king size bed last month did,” she said, her taunt turning sour when she ran out of air and started coughing harshly against Launchpad’s sleeve.

If she hadn’t been so sick, this would’ve turned into an argument between them, Launchpad was sure. But Drake didn’t have it in him, even if Gosalyn was willing to fight him to the grave just to have the last laugh. Drake sighed, hand on her chest to feel how shallow she was breathing, and looked up at Launchpad in a silent plea.

“Sure thing, DW,” Launchpad answered dutifully.

Upstairs, Drake grabbed the blanket from Gosalyn’s room and tossed it over their own bed, Launchpad plopping Gosalyn’s shivering form down on it so that Drake could swaddle her up nice and snug. Launchpad took the scarf from around his own neck and wrapped it around hers. Gosalyn tucked her beak into the fabric of the scarf and breathed in.

“Smells like the garage,” she whispered, eyes closed. Launchpad was standing frozen at the side of the bed, same spot he’s slept in for the last four weeks, suddenly unsure if he was still welcome, unsure if he should intrude on this family moment.

“Heh, yeah, sorry kiddo,” Launchpad stammered.

“Reminds me of you.”

Drake grumbled, pulling the bundle that was his daughter against him as he shuffled under the covers. “What she means is you always smell like dirt and oil,” he snipped.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s nice.”

Drake rolled his eyes, but also extended his arm, beckoning Launchpad to lay down. So he did.

They laid on their sides, facing one another, with Gosalyn pressed between them. Drake reached his arm over her and set his hand on Launchpad’s side, and Launchpad followed suit, able to wrap his arm around the both of them with no trouble. Gosalyn’s shivering began to ebb, surrounded by the warmth of her father and... her Launchpad.

Drake pressed a kiss to her cheek, and then she turned her head, gazing expectantly at Launchpad. When he didn’t act, her glare sharpened. “ _Ahem_ ,” she rasped, her voice so small and so weak and yet still so ferocious. “Well?”

Behind her, Drake was staring at him as well, an unreadable expression. It filled Launchpad with anxiety. Still, he gave Gosalyn’s cheek the meekest little kiss he could muster, and finally she smiled at him, settling between them.

“Goodnight,” she mumbled, eyes closing. And still, Drake stared at him, unmoving, indiscernible. Drake’s emotions were always so obvious. He didn’t know _how_ to conceal them, he shouted them with fervor as they came and went. It was what made living with him so easy. But not now. Now, he was silent. 

Launchpad’s skin began to prickle on the back of his neck, feathers standing up. He smiled disarmingly, to no avail. Drake blinked at him slowly, expression unchanging, cogs turning behind his eyes.

The moment came to a shattering end with a high, pitchy whine as Gosalyn began to squirm, testing her range of motion in the tight bundle Drake had secured her in. “I can’t sleep,” she griped, and Launchpad was grateful to her for tearing Drake’s attention away. “Tell me a story.”

“Like what, sweetie?” Drake sighed. “Another werewolf blood fest, I assume?”

“What did your parents used to do when you were sick?”

The question cracked through the room like a bolt of electricity. It would have been a mercy if it were an open question, but her gaze was fixed on Drake. Finally there was some readability in him, Launchpad watching Drake’s eyes widen and flick away, watching his chest heave with a deep inhale as he subdued the impulse to flee the room.

“Did you sleep in their room like this?” Gosalyn pressed, blissfully unaware of the blaring red signals that were so apparent to Launchpad.

Drake swallowed hard. “Oh, sure,” he said with a smile, tone shooting up an octave or two. “They would sit up with me all night, and they always read Chickadee and the Chocolate Factory to me whenever I got sick, because it was my favorite.”

Gosalyn’s expression glazed over, peaceful as she pictured the scene, but Drake’s was tight, smiling through clenched teeth.

“What else?” Gosalyn pressed. Launchpad racked his brain, but couldn’t fathom a way to ask her to stop.

“Well... they would always hold me just like this,” Drake said. His hand fell away from Launchpad’s side to stroke Gosalyn’s hair. “And when I got better, we’d go picnic in the park and sit in the warm sun, and I’d get a new comic book on the way home for being so brave.”

Gosalyn yawned, mumbling against Launchpad’s scarf as she settled in to sleep once more. Just like that, as if Drake had her under a spell. “I wish I could’ve met them,” she said.

“Me too, baby.”

“Can we visit their graves?”

Drake let go of her hair, fingers curling inward, squeezing so tightly into a fist that his arm shook.

“Maybe when you’re better, honey,” he said weakly.

“Maybe we could picnic there...”

Drake stopped breathing, looking to Launchpad, desperate for a way to back out of this hole he had flung himself into. There was no routine for this. No dance. Launchpad couldn’t help him this time, and he felt his rib cage shattering as he watched his partner drown.

Neither of them spoke again until Gosalyn’s snoring kicked up.

Launchpad swallowed, mouth dry. “Have you ever even read Chickadee and the Chocolate Factory?”

“I’ve seen the movie,” Drake snapped back at him, predictably on the defense now.

“We’ll think of something to tell her,” Launchpad answered reassuringly, watching Drake deflate, sinking deep into his pillow.

“I messed up, LP.”

Launchpad took Drake’s hand in his, uncurling the fingers so he could stroke the palm with his own thumb, jolting awake a million nerve endings to keep Drake grounded. “Why couldn’t you just tell her the truth?”

That indiscernible stare returned, but a little softer around the edges now as Drake gazed at him. “The truth... isn’t worth telling,” Drake said slowly, testing how each word passed over his tongue and bracing for the next. “I have all the family I need.”

Launchpad slipped his arm back around Drake’s shoulders, pulling him as close as he could without jostling their sleeping daughter.


End file.
